Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we marched toward Valentine’s Day, the theme was supernatural romance.  I didn’t make the deadline, but will see if I can put ’em all on the blog by the last day of this month.  I repeated Day Nine because I forgot I’d already done it when I went to collabo with my boyfriend on X amount of days.  Day X is a tradition of mine where I take all the prompts that didn’t win votes and roll them into a mega-prompt.

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 9 — INANIMATE

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Splinters.  ‘Nuff said.

TITLE:  RUDEWOOD

CHARACTERS:  Corey Blighter is a genderqueer punk rocker who somehow turned the abuse of the world into a kink for getting insulted.  They meet a tree of the same enchanted species that spawned Pinocchio, once upon a time.  The tree is just rude and insulting to everyone who passes by, playing cruel tricks as much as its limited mobility allows.

PREMISE:  Corey makes the tree feel some type of way.  But is it possible for a rudewood to love?  They are made out of sap, splinters, and insult comedy.  The way they reproduce is by making humans so mad they cut the tree down, and this tree succeeds with a less twisted human than Corey.  The love must end.

THE HOOK:  Or must it?  Rudewood personalities can survive the chopping.  Corey can get the piece that has their lover within, and make some kind of a mannequin Gilbert Gottfried out of it.  Happily ever after, babe.

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 6 — INCORPOREAL

TITLE:  VOCALOVE

CHARACTERS:  The User, a similar character to me and Cubist’s MC from AIsaac, undefined and ambiguous via the narrow frame around the narrative.  Melpominy Muzik, a cheap Eastern European Hatsune Miku clone.

PREMISE:  The User finds an old CD of Melpominy in a used record shop in Hungary and tries to use her in their own music.  But the icon of the character, the sweet things she says within the program’s UI, could she be true waifu material?  How can she possibly have so much love in less than 700 megabytes?

THE HOOK:  One of those stories where you wonder if the lover is real or just a figment of the ardent one’s imagination, thereby a reiteration of the “Is it better to live in dreams?” theme.

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY X — THE LOSERS: BEASTLY, DEMONIC, EXPERIMENTAL, FIERY, GIGANTIC, MINUSCULE, MUTATED, OVERPOWERED, SEASONAL, SHADOWY

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Bad Ending?

TITLE:  THE VICES OF DR. CARLO

CHARACTERS:  Dr. Vicente Carlo, a mad scientist.  Profesor Hector Olivares, his on-again off-again tempestuous gay lover.

PREMISE:  Dr. Carlo is a descendant of wealth, whose family avoided any revolutionary ire with delicate politicking during turbulent times, retaining those means with a low profile.  But generational inheritance can only last until a generation comes too dysfunctional to hold onto it.  Vicente is that man.  While he has the silver tongue of his ancestors, he has bizarre obsessions that spell his doom.

At the hacienda Dr. Carlo experiments with the intersection of science and the arcane and dark arts, with the often reluctant assistance of Profesor Olivares.  The profesor is more broadly travelled and conventional in his interests, bringing back tales of scientific advancements whenever he comes to town.  The doctor takes those tales and turns them into nightmares.

One Día de los Muertos (SEASONAL), Dr. Carlo used the power of dick to convince Prof. Olivares to help him contain the power of the heavens in a special battery.  But he doesn’t let the profesor know that the battery is full of satanic (DEMONIC) mojo. They harness a thunderstorm, draw the power of the heavens, but it combines with the power of hell, and the battery explodes.

Profesor Olivares is MUTATED into a rampaging BEAST that feeds on FIRE, heat, electricity, leaving blackened ruin in his wake. He sets off in pursuit of these things, burning up the nearest city and its inhabitants, one piece at a time. He becomes OVERPOWERED and GIGANTIC, bringing down the military.

To save his lover, Dr. Carlo must venture inside the broken battery. He takes an EXPERIMENTAL potion to become MINUSCULE, but runs afoul of SHADOWY demons that protect the strange realm of the machine, like an immune system. He takes a lot of hits, but eventually escapes into an unrecognizable region.

THE HOOK:  He has actually passed into Hell, and when the military takes down Hector with tanks, he meets his boy there.  “Oops, we both died. Better luck next life?”  They can be lovers in Hell.

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

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